At this time the Second World War broke out and Bose felt that India should take advantage of Britain’s preoccupation with the war and need for Indian support to demand independence. He was planning mass civil disobedience to protest against India being included in the war but Gandhi did not agree with the plan. The government, nervous about further protests, arrested him, but Bose went on fast in prison and nearly died. Forced to release him, the government put him, virtually under house arrest in Calcutta.
On 19 January 1941 Bose and his nephew Sisir managed to leave the house and drove away in a car. They reached Peshawar and were helped by Afghans to cross the border. Bose grew a beard and wore Afghan clothes, but as he couldn’t speak Pushto, he pretended to be deaf and mute. Helped by the German secret service, he crossed into Russia using the passport of an Italian nobleman Count Orlando Mazzotta. When he arrived in Moscow he discovered that the Soviets, who were fighting the war on the side of the Allied nations (which included Britain), were not too keen to get involved. The Soviets put him on a plane to Berlin.
The Germans, part of the Axis nations fighting the Allies, were more interested and offered him the opportunity to make radio broadcasts, and he began to make speeches on the Azad Hind Radio from Berlin. At this time the BBC reported that he was dead at which he began a broadcast saying, ‘I am Subhas Chandra Bose who is still alive and talking to you.’ His plan was to build an army with the Indian soldiers who had been captured by Germany in North Africa and march towards India through Afghanistan. He also managed to meet Hitler and other Nazi leaders. However, it became clear pretty soon that Hitler, busy with his plans to invade Russia, was not too keen to support such an ambitious plan.
In 1943 a disappointed Bose travelled by a German submarine to reach Japan and got a warmer welcome, even meeting the Japanese Prime Minister Tojo. By then the Japanese had swept across Southeast Asia. They had captured British colonies like Singapore and a large group of Indian soldiers were now prisoners of war in Japanese camps. The Indian National Army (INA) was originally formed with these soldiers in 1942 by Captain Mohan Singh and was later taken over by the Indian Independence League established by Rash Behari Bose. Rash Behari was a revolutionary who had been living in exile in Japan for many years. He now handed the INA to Subhas.
The INA or the Azad Hind Fauj, with thousands of soldiers and volunteers, was organized into a proper army with the help of the Japanese. It even had a women’s unit called the Rani Lakshmi Bai regiment. Bose established a provisional government of Free India and gave the call ‘Dilli Chalo!’ to his troops. In their advance through Burma, the INA fought beside the Japanese. The Andaman and Nicobar islands were captured and Bose renamed them Shaheed and Swaraj. He was escorted everywhere by the Japanese and was not aware of the real situation on the islands. After occupation the Japanese had imprisoned many Indian freedom fighters in the Cellular Jail and were even torturing them.
The Japanese army reached the borders of Assam and Bose raised the Indian tricolour at the town of Moirang in Manipur as the army laid siege to Kohima and Imphal. The INA soldiers fought bravely and Bose hoped that Indian soldiers in the Allied army would desert and join him but that did not happen. Then the tide turned as the Germans were defeated in Europe and the Japanese began to retreat. Conditions worsened during the monsoons as food supplies dried up and the soldiers struggled against a hostile terrain. After being defeated at Kohima the Japanese surrendered and with them the INA also lost their war of independence.
No one really knows how Bose died. He is said to have died in a plane crash over Taiwan on 18 August 1945. However, for many years, rumours circulated that he had survived and reappeared in India. Bose’s final fate has remained one of the enduring mysteries of the war. All through this extraordinary adventure spanning continents, Indians had listened and prayed for him. Bose’s popularity had soared with every victory of the Azad Hind Fauj. So when three officers of the INA—Dhillon, Shah Nawaz and Sehgal—were put on trial at the Red Fort for treason, lawyer-politicians Bhulabhai Desai and Nehru came forward to defend them. Because of their huge popularity they were not punished though they were cashiered from the army.
Rabindranath Tagore called him ‘Desh Nayak’; to the people he was their ‘Netaji’. Gandhi was sure he was alive and would come back one day. During the war years most of the nationalists were in jail and it was the exploits of Subhas Chandra Bose and the INA that kept the freedom movement alive in the minds of the people. His bravery and charisma were unquestionable and he was a hero for young Indians. People listened eagerly to his broadcasts and followed the movements of the INA. He was a man of great personal courage and sincere patriotism who inspired many to join the struggle for freedom.
Bose’s patriotism was undeniable but the question remains if his decision to ally with Germany and Japan would have brought us freedom or replaced one colonial power with another. Indian freedom fighters were ill-treated in the Andamans, and then when the tide turned against them, the Japanese abandoned the INA soldiers to starvation and death. After all, ironically, the Japanese were also an imperialist power and had never given freedom to any country that they had conquered. Subhas Chandra Bose remains one of the most tragic heroes of our freedom struggle.
Bhikaiji Cama
This flag is of India’s independence. Behold, it is born. It is already sanctified by the blood of martyred Indian youth.
—Bhikaiji Cama
It was a cosmopolitan gathering at the International Socialist Congress in Germany. On 22 August 1907 there was a rustle of interest among the delegates when an Indian woman in a sari, with the pallav demurely covering her head, confidently walked up on stage. Then after a passionate speech she unfurled a flag before the gathering; it had horizontal stripes in green, yellow and red, with the words ‘Bande Mataram’ proudly emblazoned in the centre. It was the flag of a colonized and enslaved nation declaring to the world its determination to win freedom. When Bhikaiji Cama unfurled the first Indian flag to the world, she declared, ‘I appeal to lovers of freedom all over the world to cooperate with this flag in freeing one-fifth of the human race.’
Bhikaiji Cama was born on 24 September 1861 to Sorabji Framji Patel, a businessman, and his wife Jijibai, into a very affluent Parsi family in Bombay. Bhikaiji did her schooling from the Alexandra Native Girls’ English Institution. In 1885 she married Rustomji Cama, a barrister, but it was not a happy marriage as there was no meeting of minds between them. Rustomji was a conservative man who admired the British and believed British rule was beneficial to India while his wife was fired by nationalism and the struggle for women’s emancipation.
Cama was very excited by the formation of the Indian National Congress in 1885 as she felt that such an organization could spearhead India’s struggle for freedom. She also believed that if women showed some courage and stepped out to join the political movement, it would lead to their emancipation. Cama’s thinking was far ahead of her times; many women in nineteenth-century India lived in purdah, most of them were uneducated and they had no rights at all. Few of them would have had the courage to step out of their homes. Through her free-spirited life Cama would show Indian women what they could achieve if they wanted to.
Cama could have led a life of luxury and ease; instead she became involved in political activities, social service and also began to write political articles for the newspaper The Bombay Chronicle, brought out by Pherozeshah Mehta. In 1896 there was an outbreak of bubonic plague in Bombay and she personally nursed patients, working with the teams from the Grant Medical College. She contracted plague herself but survived. In 1902, still in fragile health, she left for London for medical treatment. Cama did not know that this was the be ginning of a long exile from her homeland. While she was in London she received an order from the government that she would not be allowed to return to India unless she gave an undertaking not to take part in the nationalist movement. She refused to do so and stayed back in London.
Cama began to work
as the private secretary of Dadabhai Naoroji who was at that time contesting for a seat in the House of Commons. She also came into contact with a number of Indian revolutionaries who were living in exile in London. Among them were Shyamji Krishna Verma, Sardar Singh Rana, V.D. Savarkar and Lala Hardayal who formed the Ghadar party. So far Cama had been a follower of the moderate and liberal path of Naoroji, but now she became more influenced by the militant ideology of the Russian Revolution that inspired these men. With Lala Hardayal, she began to publish a newspaper Bande Mataram, inspired by the newspaper of the same name published by Aurobindo Ghose in Calcutta.
Cama became a popular speaker, giving fiery lectures at London’s Hyde Park and addressing meetings to build awareness of what British rule had really done to the Indian people. Like Naoroji, she often spoke of how India was being impoverished by the policies of the British government. Then in 1907 she attended the International Socialist Congress at Stuttgart, Germany, where delegates from twenty-five countries were participating. Here, at the end of her speech, she unfurled a tricolour flag designed by her and Savarkar. She called it the ‘Flag of Indian Independence’ and later with some modifications, this would become the flag of independent India. She had instinctively understood the need for a symbol of our national struggle and one day Satyagrahis would lead processions defiantly holding a tricolour aloft above them.
Later she travelled across the United States, Europe and even North Africa on lecture tours and the flag was always displayed on stage. Everywhere she spoke on the two issues closest to her heart—India’s freedom and women’s emancipation. In 1910, looking at an all-male audience in Cairo, Egypt, she asked angrily, ‘I see here the representatives of only half the population of Egypt. May I ask where is the other half? Sons of Egypt, where are the daughters of Egypt? Where are your mothers and sisters? Your wives and daughters?’
The British government was very unhappy with her activities, and fearing that they would deport her, Cama shifted to Paris. Here, influenced by the political writings of Vladimir Lenin, Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi, her political ideology took a turn towards leading a militant revolution in India. Her home became a centre for young revolutionaries and she encouraged them to train in the use of arms. She smuggled arms and revolutionary literature into India through the French colony of Pondicherry. The British government requested her extradition on ground of seditious activities but the French government refused. In retaliation, the Indian government seized her properties in Bombay.
In 1910 Savarkar was arrested in London and was to be sent to India by ship. Cama and her comrades planned to rescue him when his ship arrived in France. Savarkar managed to jump off the ship and swim ashore at the French port of Marseilles, but Cama, who was supposed to receive him, arrived late. Savarkar was arrested by the French police and the British government immediately demanded that he be handed over to them. Cama fought to get him asylum in France but failed, and Savarkar was sent back to India and imprisoned in the Andamans.
Cama was deeply influenced by the Socialist movement and the revolution in Russia and often wrote in Socialist newspapers. Lenin invited her to live in Russia and she corresponded with the Russian writer Maxim Gorky. During the First World War she was interned in France for three years. In 1935, at the age of seventy-five, Cama was finally allowed to return to India after thirty-four years in exile. By then she was seriously ill and died on 16 August 1936.
A fighter till the end, Bhikaiji Cama was one of the earliest women revolutionaries of India. A variation of the flag that she had designed was flown on 31 December 1929 at the Indian National Congress at Lahore. She did not live to see the tricolour rise on the dome of the Rashtrapati Bhawan on 15 August 1947 and then fly on the ramparts of the Red Fort.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
The woes of Mahatmas are known to Mahatmas alone.
—Mahatma Gandhi
In the early years of the twentieth century, the Vegetarian Society was meeting at a restaurant in London. One of the speakers that evening was a young law student who had written a speech on the benefits of vegetarianism. However, when it was his turn to speak, he was so overcome with panic that he lost his voice after reading the first sentence and someone else had to read out the speech for him.
This shy, timid lawyer would one day address mass rallies of lakhs of spectators and make a nation listen to his every utterance. Many years later, talking of his fear of public speaking, Gandhi said, ‘My hesitancy in speech, which was once an annoyance, is now a pleasure. Its greatest benefit has been that it has taught me the economy of words.’ He always spoke softly, in this slightly hesitant, reflective manner, but what he spoke of were some of the hardest truths as he challenged the might of the biggest colonial empire in the world.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on 2 October 1869, in the port city of Porbandar in Kathiawar, Gujarat, the youngest son of Karamchand ‘Kaba’ Gandhi and his wife Putlibai. Kaba Gandhi was the Diwan of the princely state of Porbandar and later of Rajkot. Young Mohandas was a diffident child, afraid of thieves, ghosts and snakes, and he was deeply influenced by his mother who was a gentle, compassionate and religious woman. He was just thirteen when he was married to Kasturbai, who would remain loyal and stoic beside him for the next sixty-two years. They had four sons.
When Gandhi was eighteen, the family decided to send him to England to study law. For the first few days in London he nearly starved because he couldn’t muster up the courage to ask his landlady for vegetarian meals. He was saved when he found a vegetarian restaurant and soulmates in the Vegetarian Society. For a while, he even decided to ‘play the English gentleman’ and acquired a smart wardrobe of suits, silk top hat, spats and a silver-knobbed cane. It would take him ten minutes to tie his cravat before a minor. He even took lessons in dancing, French and playing the violin. Fortunately, this phase did not last too long and soon he immersed himself in law and reading books on philosophy, religion and vegetarian diets.
Gandhi was called to the Bar in 1891 and soon returned to Rajkot. Here, to the bewilderment of his family, he insisted on a ‘sahib’ lifestyle with the children wearing European clothes, everyone sitting down at a dining table with crockery and cutlery for meals, and eating porridge and drinking cocoa. However, his law practice wasn’t doing too well as initially Gandhi found it hard to stand up in court and examine witnesses. He still lost his voice. So when he received a job offer from an Indian firm in South Africa he accepted with alacrity.
Gandhi arrived in Durban to work for Abdulla Sheth, who owned one of the largest trading firms in Natal. Within a week of arriving, the young lawyer got his first taste of a racism that he had not encountered in Britain. While he was travelling to Pretoria by train, a white passenger objected to sharing the first-class compartment with a coloured man. When Gandhi refused to move out as he had a ticket, he was pushed out on to the platform and his baggage thrown out after him, as the train steamed out of the station. He spent the night shivering miserably in the waiting room.
This personal experience of racism made him realise the terrible humiliation and inhumanity of apartheid—the rigid separation of whites and non-whites—in South Africa. Soon he was exploring the conditions in which the Indian community lived there. Many had gone as indentured labourers in the sugar and coffee plantations and then stayed on; the rest were mostly traders. The Indians were contemptuously called ‘coolie’ or ‘sami’ and they had few rights and were often burdened with high taxes. Gandhi began to take up cases of racial discrimination and joined the fight against a proposed bill that aimed to deprive Indians of their right to vote. He became the secretary of the Natal Indian Congress and for the first time exhibited his extraordinary talent for organizing a public service campaign.
One of the cases he handled was that of an indentured labourer Balasundaram, who had been mercilessly beaten by his white employer. Gandhi won the case and then instead of asking for punishment, he requested that Balasundaram be released
from his contract. Soon, other labourers were pouring into his office and he handled so many cases that he was often referred to as the ‘Coolie Barrister’.
Meanwhile, Gandhi, who had planned to stay in South Africa for only a year, discovered that there was much work for him there. So in 1896 he went back to India to get his family with him to South Africa. He used this opportunity to create awareness in India about the colour bar in South Africa. He wrote in newspapers, distributed pamphlets and travelled to many cities, addressing meetings where he appealed to people to support the work of the Natal Congress. He met many leaders, like Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Pherozeshah Mehta, Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Badruddin Tyabji. Among them he got the most empathy and practical advice from the learned and astute Gokhale whom Gandhi always called his mentor. Impressed by his impassioned appeal, Pherozeshah Mehta convened a meeting in Bombay where Gandhi’s voice faltered again and his address had to be read out.
The Gandhi family faced a nasty reception when their ship docked at Durban. Reports of his activities in India had reached Natal and the whites were up in arms. First the ship was quarantined with the excuse that there had been an outbreak of the plague in India and then a mob waited at the dock for Gandhi to disembark. As the passengers left the ship after twenty-three days, Gandhi was advised to leave only after darkness fell, but he refused to skulk into Durban like a criminal. He let his family be taken away first and then left the ship alone.
He planned to walk from the docks to a friend’s house, a distance of two miles, and he was immediately surrounded by a violent mob that attacked him with punches and kicks. He would have been fatally injured had it not been for the presence of mind of Mrs Alexander, the wife of the police superintendent, who shielded him till the police arrived. The mob followed and surrounded his friend’s house, forcing him to slip away in disguise. When the authorities asked him to give a list of his assailants so that they could be prosecuted, Gandhi refused. Later he wrote that his action ‘produced such a profound impression that the Europeans in Durban were ashamed of their conduct’.
A Flag, a Song and a Pinch of Salt Page 4
